Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Morning everyone. Welcome to the November 20th, 2025 zoning board of adjustment meeting. If any member of the audience wishes to speak to an item on the agenda today, there are speaker request forms on the left side of the dis. Please fill out the request with the agenda number of the item you wish to speak to and hand it to the staff seated to the left side of the room. The uh public hearing on item number one, the approval of the November 6th, 2025 zoning board of adjustment meeting minutes is hereby opened. On the minutes, and I'll second.

All right. Karen made the motion to approve those minutes. Vince seconded that motion. Is there any discussion on the motion? All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item number two.

Good morning, chair, planning commission. Cassie Hayes. Item number two before you as a variance request to increase the maximum allowed height from 15 ft to 16 ft for a detached garage. We are at property located just off of Sheridan Lake Road. This property is zoned lowdensity residential district 1 with a future land use of lowdensity neighborhood and access to this property is off of Sheridan Lake Road which is a principal arterial street on the city's major street plan. What the applicant is proposing to do, this property is currently developed with a single family dwelling that you can see right here, a detached shed, and then they are proposing to construct a detached garage down here in the southeast corner of the property. That garage is proposed to be 40 feet by 50 ft. So appro so 2,000 square feet. Um what they are wanting to do here is to construct this building so that they can store things like vehicles, lawn equipment. Um but more specifically what they would like to store in here is a car trailer. So what they are proposing with this garage is they are proposing this to have three 10-ft tall garage doors. Um the 10-ft tall garage doors are necessary in order to allow it to have the proper clearance and roof pitch to store that car trailer inside. So that is why this request is before you. This is in conjunction with an oversized garage request that is on the consent agenda for the planning commission today as well. Um so this is a larger lot. It's about 2.57 acres in size. The surrounding properties, if I can get back to the aerial here, the surrounding properties as well are large acre parcels between two and four acres in size. Also, um, so that is one thing that we took into account when we were looking at this variance. The proposed garage is also going to be over 300 ft from the Sheridan Lake Road rightway. So, that is going to provide um a lot of

separation from the roadway. There are also um several mature trees that provide a screening buffer um to Sheridan Lake Road and also to the abuing properties to the north and the south. On the east side of the property, the topography rises um quite substantially on the east side of the property. Um in fact, it rises over 50 ft from where the proposed garage will be to where, for instance, this house right here. um it's about 50 feet higher than where the garage will be. So staff does feel that there will be adequate screening um to um to maintain privacy to the surrounding neighbors. This also will be um as part of the oversized garage. This garage does need to be constructed with materials and color scheme that match the existing single family dwelling. Originally they had proposed for this to be a metal building um as part of the oversized garage. is stipulated that it cannot be a metal building, which I've talked with the applicant. Um, he's okay with putting siding on it. Um, that is similar to the single family dwelling. So, with the screening, with the topography and with the separation from Sheridan Lake Road, staff does feel that this is an appropriate request um for this area. This is only a 1-oot deviation. um that screening and that topography will allow that to be minimally impactful to the surrounding neighborhood and not detrimental to the public welfare. Um so there is also I do want to point out flood way and flood plane on the west side of this property. So that is why all of the construction on this property is taking place over here on the east side. There is a substantial area of flood way and 100year flood plane that encumbers most of this western portion. So that is also a special circumstance that staff did take into account as it limits the buildable area on this property. I do want to make note that

since there is flood hazard area on the property, even though the detached garage will not be in it, a flood plane development permit is still required since it is on the property. So ultimately staff is recommending approval. Um I will show you a few pictures here that show you some of that topography. Um, so this is looking directly at the property from the entrance off of Sheridan Lake Road. You can see that they've posted um their notice for the conditional use permit, but you can see even with these trees being um not leafed right now. Um the house sits back here, so it still provides pretty substantial screening um even in the downtime of the year. And then this is looking at that topography rise um to that that house up there. So you can see that there's pretty significant topography in that area. And then this is looking directly at the house again a little bit closer to show that topography rise as well. So staff is recommending approval based on the facts that um this is not injurious to the neighborhood or detrimental to public welfare and that there are special circumstances on this property that do support approval of the variance request. I'll stand for any questions. Thank you, Haven.

Thank you. But just to clarify, uh, one of the diagrams that you showed here indicates that it appears to indicate that it's 19.6 ft to the top of the roof. U, and other comments indicated there were just a one variation. Could you explain that, please?

Yep. So, the maximum allowed height for an accessory structure is 15 ft. What you see right here, the 19.6 6 feet that is um to the top of the roof. When we're looking at height, we take the median height when it's a pitched roof. We take the median height between eve and peak and that's where um we get that height from. So if you take the median height between the 12.6 to the eve and the 19.6 to the peak, that's where you come up with that 16 ft.

Vince, thank you chair. Um, and just to clarify also that you said that that uh and I don't believe it's in the the writeup, but uh the uh homeowner is going to match the color of the uh of the garage to the house. Correct. Yep. That is actually a stipulation of their oversized garage. That's on your consent agenda today. That is a stipulation of that. Um because that is something that is specific to a requirement for an oversized garage, which this is. I wanted to get get that out now because I know it's coming up later. Thank you. Eric

Hikus make a motion to approve uh under the stipulations. It's not injurous to the neighborhood does not affect healtha safety and welfare and uh there are some special circumstances looks like some good planning. I'll throw it out there. I'll agree with that. Second. All right. Eric made his motion as stated. Vince seconded his motion. Discussion on the motion. All those in favor, please say I. I. I.

Any opposed? Motion carries. That was the only other agenda item we had on zoning board of adjustment. I'd look to Yeah, there you go. Second. Karen made the motion to adjurnn zoning board of adjustment. Um Vince seconded that motion. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed?

That takes us to the Rapid City Planning Commission meeting for November 20th, 2025. Again, if any members of the audience wish wishes to speak to an item on the planning commission agenda, please grab a speaker request form from the left side of the room, hand it to the staff seated over there, and we'll make sure you're heard. Please fill out the request with the agenda number of the item you wish to speak to and hand it uh to the folks seated seated over there. Items 1 through 7 have been placed on the consent calendar today and may be approved as a group. Action will be taken on all consent items in accordance with staff's recommendation by a single vote. Any item may be removed from the consent calendar by any planning commissioner, staff member, or audience member for separate consideration at this time. The findings of this planning commission are recommendations to the city council. The city council will make the final decision with the exception of the following items. Item two, 25 PD023 and item 725 URUR032. The Rapid City Planning Commission's actions on these items is final unless any party appeals that decision to the Rapid City Council. All appeals must be submitted in writing to the Department of Community Development by close of business on the seventh full calendar day following action by the planning commission. Are there any items one through seven that staff would like removed for separate consideration?

No, thank you. All right. Any items 1 through seven that any planning commissioner would like removed? And are there any items one through seven that any audience member would like removed for separate consideration? Did they remove item one? 127. Yes. All right. Seeing none, I'd look for a motion to approve items 1 through 7 in accordance with the staff's recommendations. Motion to approve items 1 through 7 in accordance with the uh staff stipulations. Second.

All right. Vince made the motion. Eric Hikus seconded the motion. Any discussion on the that motion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item number eight.

Good morning, chair, planning commission. Uh this is a reszone request to go from heavy industrial to general commercial. Uh we are at 3602 Campbell Street. This is just for a portion of the property. The property is about 2.5 acres. This is for the 4.33 acres on the frontage of the property. You'll note here today we've got kind of a multi-tenant building on the front. There is trailer storage that's associated with the trailer repair and sales that is in the rear of the property that would remain heavy industrial. So in looking at this property, there is significant amount of heavy industrial on the east side of Campbell Street. And this is north of Minnesota. And that industrial runs um close up to Fairmont. The other side of the street you there is a general commercial property. I'll note this is actually the juvenile hall and the um Pennington County road shop. And then just to the south there there is the the bus barn for the school district. So these are more public uses on the west side of the street. And then moving further west you get toward the the neighborhood areas in the park. On the east side, [sighs and gasps] you have a nice buffer with the railway. The heavy industrial serves as a really nice buffer for protecting kind of that that railway rate use. And it doesn't um they're more compatible uses in that regard as well. The future land use of the property is light industrial um with some heavy industrial on the east side and public again on that um west side that recognizes the public uses on the other side of the street. So, this was one of the primary reasons that staff is recommending denial on this property. The future land use in the area does not support um nor does the comprehensive plan support the reasonzoning. This gives you a little better idea of

where we are on Campbell. So, north of Eastville is down here. Um so, it's between Fairmont and Minnesota. There are, as I noted, there's there's quite a bit of industrial properties to the north and south here. There is commercial uses on either side of that as well. So, for one of the criteria, the area hasn't sub substantially changed. It's been industrial for some time. There are sufficient commercial uses to the north and south on Campbell [snorts] as well. Just a note on the the existing uses, there are some non-conforming conditions to this site. Typically, when we do a reszone, we have variances associated with those that do not meet the new zoning district's um standards if they are a um more stringent standard. There is a fence that runs the property line here that is compliant under heavy industrial, but would not be on the front setback. For general commercial, it would need to be set back 25 ft. The applicant did pro um submit a variance request for this. Uh we held it at this point since staff is recommending denial. If it does move forward with an approval, we would bring that variance forward to um increase the height. It would have to be 4 feet or 25 ft back. So the variance would be to um allow a 7 foot fence in lie of a 4ft fence. So, just keep that in mind that that would move forward if the reszone uh does move forward with an approval at council. There's a couple other conditions that aren't triggered that would remain. There's paving requirements that would be for that trailer sales area and then their landscaping does not appear to meet code either. Typically those get triggered when new uses are um introduced or if there's an expansion of

the use or in some cases the parking lot as well. The applicant has noted they are looking for more commercial retail particularly restaurant uses. Restaurants aren't permitted in heavy industrial. There is some retail that's allowed in light industrial and the permitted uses in light industrial are also allowed in heavy industrial. So there's some level of commercial that's already allowed on this property. They are looking for that restaurant use uh which would not be permitted. So that's why the request for general commercial has come forward. This is the existing building just to get you oriented with the site. This is looking straight on. You can see they did provide their public notice. This is that trailer sales area uh looking north on Campbell. This is that juvenile hall. The road shop is over here just across from it. And then the bus barn a little more southwest. This is looking south on Campbell. We're just turning in a circle here. This is right next door to the property. Uh there's a construction company in here. So you can see these there's not really commercial prevalent in the area. There's nothing that's changed to go through the criteria for the the reszone. Um again there are some non-conforming conditions that are not consistent with general commercial. Typically we prefer that to uh be paved for the trailer sales. Sometimes industrial properties can have the gravel, but for general commercial specifically, um it is paving is more consistent with general commercial. There is a bit of an adverse effect here since it's difficult to zone industrial land. So when you start taking away industrial land, you don't necessarily get it back and it's difficult to locate elsewhere as well.

So keeping that in mind, it could set a precedent to start eating away at the industrial land along Campbell in this area. This road is actually 45 miles per hour as opposed to some of the lower speed roads in the commercial areas. So you're also kind of causing commercial uses have higher traffic, you know, counts. And so you're also causing some traffic impacts to this area. As I noted before, we have that conflict with the comp the comprehensive plan and it is not consistent with the future land use. So staff is recommending denial. The applicant is in the audience if you have questions for them. Thank you. Thank you, [clears throat]

Mr. Yes. Thank you. You know, these are always hard. We try to work with property owners. We understand that they've got dreams for their property and they want to get the highest and best use that they feel appropriate. This one is hard because it is heavy industrial and we are charged with ensuring that we are allowing and preserving heavy industrial areas. Uh the comprehensive plan cites that it's something that was recently adopted. In this case, one of the conditions that if it would have been met, we could have leaned into is if there was a substantially changed condition in this area. Um and there just hasn't been. So leaning into what does the comp plan state what does the future land use plan identify the need to preserve those heavy industrial strips. Well, they may say we're okay. We're going to put a restaurant or other commercial uses on our property with heavy industrial uses around it. When the neighbor comes in for some heavy industrial use that maybe is conditional, then it's going to impact the restaurant. then they have a right to speak out against some of those conditions, too. So, we brought you a recommendation to deny and we encourage you to listen to the applicant for why he's reszoning this. Thank you. We do have a couple speaker requests forums on this and uh before we get to um those I just want to note that uh we're going to limit the uh time for public speaking at 3 minutes per person just to make sure everybody on this item and the next item uh will be able to be heard. Steve Winnia, if you'd like to address the commission. [clears throat] Good morning, commission members. My name is Steve

Winnia. Uh along with my wife and family own Windard Investments. [clears throat] I've been operating businesses, buying developing property in Rapid City for 35 years. I'm here to request a reszoning on 362 Campbell Street. I purchased the 10 acres a few months ago and been remodeling as you can see by the by the building there. That was probably the ugliest building within two miles and uh having garbage hauled off the property and uh to the tune of I've tore down five old buildings already, hauled them to the dump. um spent, I don't know, probably $70,000 in dump fees and getting rid of these old falling down buildings. [clears throat and cough] I believe this uh main corridor 79 into Rapid City should be uh uh the frontage should be uh you know it should be beautiful property right along the frontage coming into Rapid City. You know landscaping the contemporary buildings and retail businesses. You know there are several parcels of property within three blocks that are zoned general commercial. I'm familiar with uh most of the businesses that have been in this strip mall in front of Blakes over the years. I I go by there every day, so several times maybe. And most in the past, uh most of them actually have been retail sales businesses. You know, there's been a dental office in there, fast and all insurance offices, and beyond that, I can't remember a lot of them, but I know they've been in there. Um,

uh, my realtor, I have Shannon Brinker here. She's, uh, my leasing agent on this property, and, uh, she'll tell you that there's a need for additional retail on South Campbell. You know, she that's what basically she's had all calls on retail. The general commercial will not create traffic issues. That's a four-lane highway with a turning lane. I don't believe that the the 7T fence is a non that's a non-issue. You know, that can be fixed in short order, either shortened, removed, moved, whatever. Um the retail business on this property will generate more tax revenue for the city than heavier light industrial. I understand the fa future land use concept. The reality is the public and developers drive development in these mixed use areas. Uh general commercial zoning will not cause any harm but will enhance this enhance [clears throat] a corridor coming into Rapid City from the south. Heavy industrial does not bring beauty to an area. Never has circle K was just allowed to build on industrially owned property.

Mr. Wy, we hit the three minute. Any any questions? uh not immediately but we might call you up for questions if uh we come to it. Okay. Thank you. And we also have Shannon Brinker.

Good morning. Um I just wanted to clarify we haven't had any restaurant um interest in the property. We have had a couple of coffee shops and what I'm hearing from um because I deal with leasing all throughout um the city of Rapid City is that that is a main corridor coming in and what we have a lack of is general commercial where it's easy for say ranchers, people with big trucks, big trailers to come in and be able to like get a coffee to be able to park. We've had um western clothing stores, um a salon, a spa, um a lot of different uses that would not be allowed in the industrial zoning. And I know I don't know if we can pull up like the parcel where where you can see it or if you guys can look at it, but Steve's intent is to basically create a buffer. So the long-term plan would be to develop that back area for industrial use, but to have that buffer on the front where he would be in compliance with landscaping, concrete, whatever it is that we need to do. Um, if we if it's general commercial, we have no intent to keep that fence where it currently is. That the variance wouldn't be an issue because we would want to go ahead and landscape and beautify and remove that fence. Um but uh but yeah, I just um and to Vickiy's point, you know, I've seen Steve's plans and what he wants to do for that area and I just think with the tourists coming in and everybody coming in from that direction, what a nice buffer. you know, we're still maintaining industrial on the back side of that property, but really beautifying that front and also um you know, giving the people who are coming in who have

those vehicles where it's tough to get into town to go downtown for coffee or in some of those hightra areas like, you know, Mount Rushmore Road where um you know, to try to get a a big truck in there and deal with all the traffic and everything. Um that's just what I'm hearing from my potential tenants is that um that and just the visibility and the fact that it has been um you know it has been general commercial uses forever and most recently we put in an insurance office and um and that was with you know getting permits and everything from the city and and their full knowledge. So, um, I hope you consider Steve's request because I think what he wants to do is going to be good for Rapid City.

Thank you. All right, commissioners. Thoughts, questions on this? Mike Quasnney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I guess I have a question. The railroad is that not they're we're considering moving that. Is that where they're considering moving the railroad out of there? And Kip.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Clausy. We are currently undergoing the railard relocation and railway align realignment study. So, there is a possibility that that railard may be relocated in the future. However, we have not come up with a location at this point, nor a process to relocate. So, this is the first step. The study is a first step of a multi-step process to relocate that railard. That rail yard might uh it moving might change the industrial uh where we want industrial because the rail the industrial would use the railway more. Correct.

That's correct. The the there will still be a rail line at that location, but as you can see on the aerial photograph right now, it looks like there about five railroad tracks right there. that would be significantly decreased probably down to one rail line at that location if the rail yard were to move. But again, that is to be determined at this point.

Okay. Well, this area kind of reminds me of uh south of Gillette and and they've done a lot of uh put it put commercial type restaurants, gas stations, etc. on there. And in this area, we actually to the north and south were putting gas stations and uh it we've kind of started to do that in a way uh on either side of this. So I'm not sure exactly how I want to vote on this. So Eric Hikus.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm [clears throat] with Mike. I'm torn on this one, too. Mike, are you talking about Enzy in South Chillette? Yes.

Okay. So, um I I really want to note one one thing I'm seeing here, and that's the amount of work that Steve is doing to clean up this parcel and and do some really nice improvements. Uh and and I really I'm noting the potential that the realtor is suggesting as an incubator, and those those carry some weight. on on the flip side, uh the comprehensive plan and the once it's been zoned out of industrial, it's hard to zone back. Those things I'm hearing in the other side. So, um I'm I'm kind of torn, too. So excited to hear what my other commissioners have to say. Haven,

thank you. Apparently, the the request is to reszone that entire western portion, which is the yellow outline here. Uh, I guess I just asked the question. I don't see that it would make a difference if only the area around the current building was reszoned as opposed to the entire 4.3 acres. Mr. Chair Vicki, that even makes more of a spot zoning and speaks to the issue of that not being appropriate in an area that's otherwise um secured with industrial uses

and it has been brought up and I am familiar with this uh building. There's been some uh commercial uses in that building in the past. How Yeah. How how were they allowed in that building in the past? So there are retail uses and other item activities that can take place in industrial. Uh it's really though catering to the tourist traffic or um as as uh was mentioned by the applicant wanting to serve um the general public. Uh that would be the difference having the coffee shop. Industrial specifically precludes that because of the truck traffic that is typically generated by uses on adjacent properties or within the heavy industrial area. And just as a reminder, this is the truck bypass route and where we would want to see heavy industrial uses. So, just to clarify, uh, apparently there are quite a few different uses that could be made really, uh, general commercial uses that could be made of this building with the current and heavy industrial zoning as as has been the case in the past with this building.

That's correct. uh any use allowed in light industrial is also allowed in heavy industrial. And if you look at the zoning ordinance, it identifies that you can have retail stores and um this is where uh like an auto uh uh repair or auto parts store um could be or any retail. I mean someone could sell t-shirts from here. So the um the restriction would be the for restaurants, coffee shops that that's not allowed. Correct. Child care centers, those kinds of things.

Uh Karen Bowman.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I want to uh thank Mr. Winna for cleaning up the area. I think that's that's a positive and I can understand the idea of having something more beautiful along that corridor. I mean that's something every city wants to see if you come into town. But I also know that that industrial is a hard place to change. And to me, if you we start changing this one parcel, would you we would we would want to change the whole corridor. And and that's a a huge undertaking because we don't have very much land that is industrial and hard to hard to acquire. You lose it, you it's hard to find it again. And uh I I I am torn be between the idea that this is a you know sounds like a fun place and if I was a rancher I'd like to have something like that I could pull in. But I think that changing this particular uh parcel to commercial is it's something it's bigger. It needs something like a whole whole idea of the whole area. And since we can't really talk about that, I mean, we can talk about it, but we're not going to do that. I mean, the industrial people that are there are not going to want to leave. So, I'm leaning towards the saying this is not the right thing to reszone this to commercial. I think we should stick it with uh industrial. So, that's my comments.

Mike Quasnney.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, this is Heartland Express, isn't it? Isn't it part of it? And eventually they were going to have where from Denver to all the way through Nebraska up to Rapid we had this Heartland Express. Uh that's kind of Nebraska kind of fell off as I understand. Um but it still is considered an entrance to Rapid City. And where I struggle is when we do the entrances to our community. I don't know if the best picture is industrial or commercial. And I I I I'm leaning towards commercial only because of the effects and and he's done a beautiful job of rehabbing this piece of property. Uh it it's people like this that make our community better. Um, again, I still struggle with it and with it being the Heartland Express, it lean me leans me towards wanting to make that where there is some commercial in there. Um, only because I use that road to go down even to Wyoming. So, uh, I think there's a lot of people and I don't know if the numbers indicate that there's a tourists that come in that way. I I don't know what numbers we have and maybe uh we have some numbers that show that that's a corridor that tourists come from the south. Uh I don't know what those numbers would be, but maybe this does um indicate that we should go a little more commercial in this area um instead of industrial. That's what I struggle with. So nice job on making the property look so much better. We appreciate it. So uh Vince, thank you chair. No, I agree with

everything that's being said and great as that these are great points to make up and again the the the the most important thing is I I didn't recognize this building because of the improvements you've made. you have done a great job and and again that's why we should be listening to you and understand what you're trying to do. So, I get that. I truly do. And uh the challenge that that I have is that and I I don't have the answer. And that is if we needed a light industrial area, where are we going to put it? And we do have some potential changes as was has already been mentioned with the railroad. And this may be the right place, but it's a timing issue at this point for me. And I'm still thinking that I don't know where we're going to put another light industrial area. We thought we we've faced this uh challenge before and I believe it was over uh we now have uh where the offices of Green Tree are located and now we're going to have the county building out in that area as well. So there is going to be expansion. There is potential growth. Mike brought up a good question as to yeah more uh more potential commercial services in this particular area. I do drive by this pretty much every other day. So I I get that. So uh again I thank you for bringing it and yes it is going to be a tough decision. Thank you

John Roberts.

Thank you very much. Um I think one of the things that we need to bring into this discussion is we're talking about replacing light and heavy industrial just to the south of here. 90 acres of light industrial has been added and about 400 acres of heavy industrial has been added. I think that this is a big mistake or a miss on the future land use plan. And I'll regress to the to the last land use plan where we had that one changed because Maul Drive, the frontage of Maul Drive in that plan was said to be all well I should say Maul Drive from from uh Lacrosse Street to Hannes was residential. So we changed the frontage of that to general commercial because that's what it should be on a road like that. But I believe in the future land use plan, everything from Katrine Boulevard into St. Patrick's Street should be general commercial on the frontage. Uh, you know, and talking about the rail railroad move, if every star in the sky aligns just right and the federal government comes up with a ton of money, we may do this in the next decade or two. So, you know, I mean, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars on this for this. So, uh, is it possible? Is it going to happen? I hope it does. I think it would be a good thing. I know the last railroad study to change, you know, the railroad tracks in rapid was in the 50s. So, you know, I mean, it it these things are a big big hurdle to get over. But one of the reasons that the new Black Hills Industrial Park did go in to the south of here, which right now I believe there's about 400

acres that are zoned. There's another 400 acres that can be zoned, light industrial and heavy heavy industrial. So we are adding that. Uh we do need it. We definitely need it. But there's a lot of places around Rapid City where light industrial, heavy industrial has everything has grown around it. And I think it's time for us to take a look at that and get some of that general commercial into these sections, especially into our corridors into Rapid City because it's true. I mean, you drive down there and and it it looks like you're driving into a town you really don't want to drive into. So, I think there's a lot of things that that need to be changed, but everybody's used to it. I mean, it's been that way for since I was born. So, you know, but I think it's time that we we move on that we upgrade it. We make our corridor into Rapid City look better. Thank you.

Thanks, John. I'm going to butt in with a question. This This is a single parcel, correct? the to the railroad tracks and the request is to reszone a portion of the single parcel. So if there's heavy industrial on the backside without replplatting this, what's the what are the access rules through the general commercial? If we were to change the front side to general commercial,

there's no access restrictions on doing that. A parcel of property can have more than one zoning designation. The specific uses on each area need to align with the underlying zoning. Um, and then you can have a driveway that extends from one zoning district into another. So, it just be up to the property owner in order to provide within code what um they think is needed for the different uses on the property.

When that building permit comes in, because a change of use requires a building permit, we would look at that access to make sure that um that is aligning with um all regulations. There are times where you'll see a driveway that will extend from one lot to another both own by the same property owner and then we have them enter into a developmental lot agreement. It prevents them from having to platt it into one lot. It ties it together so they can't sell one away from the other and costs them nothing to do. We create the document. it does get recorded and uh u it preserves the right for access from one property to the next.

Okay. Thank you, Karen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to add a couple things. Um, I I think this area overall down the road should probably go to general commercial or something more appeas appleas pleasing to people driving into Rapid and that that requires like an a complete thought of the land uses that we want to use for this area, what we want in the future. The railroad is going to take that that's going to be there for a long time and people in the industrial area need that railroad. And so the the area is going to be industrial as far as I can see for you know for quite a while. So and the other thought I had is this particular property is here before us basically because they want to put a restaurant of some kind in there a coffee shop and there's other uses that can they can use that building for. So it's not like we're depriving him of the use of his building. I mean, if they can put, you know, an office of some kind that meets the industrial area, I think that's good. But in the meantime, he's got a nice property that looks good, and if he's still beautifying it, people will want to rent those that spot, I would think. So, I think I think the discussion of changing this uh zoning is something that we need to think about in the future, not necessarily now. I think this is too soon to change that one property just to commercial for for a restaurant. And that's kind of what how I look at it. So that's my extra thoughts. Mr. Chair

Vicki,

years ago, um, properties along Mount Rushmore Road between Omaha and, um, Fairmont were primarily, uh, residential and we went back, I believe it was in 1968. And no, I didn't work here at that time, [laughter] but we thought ahead. what should it be? And uh the future land use plan that was adopted in ' 68 showed it all as general commercial. We created a lot of legal non-conforming uses and those uses some of them still exist but we looked ahead what is right for the main corridor through the community. What um we are going to be doing in 26 is bringing forward a future land use plan update. We'll be going out into neighborhoods. Uh we'll be bringing this to you and the city council. There's been some good discussion today. what we do adopt in 26 um might look forward to what should those uses be on on Campbell Street pushing our heavy industrial even out further knowing that we would be creating some legal nonconformities but uh in essence moving the city in the right direction.

Thanks Vicki Eric Hikis. Thank you Mr. Chair, I really appreciate this discussion. Um, good points by everyone, including Mr. Roberts, although I think we should put a three limit, three minute time limit on comments up here, too. So, just just teasing, right? So, uh, I guess the tipping point for me is the spot zoning. Um, and I'm I'm going to I'm going to use that to make my final decision. Thank you,

Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I mean this is a tough one. Yeah, you hate to throw shade on anybody's business ambitions and the spot the spot zoning is probably the the tipping point for me, but I do, you know, it's inevitable this is going to be this will change down the road. Where Kmart is now, the old Kmart that used to be a massive lumber mill. My 82-y old dad tells me the stories. Where the post office is now, there used to be a junkyard. So, I see this inevitably turning commercial or some other use down the road. But I would like to see larger swaths of that corridor turn at once. And and the the spot zoning is is what's doing it for me. And and like I said, you know, I I hate to just turn anybody down that wants to, you know, change that corridor or do whatever they want with their property, but um I'm going to vote to support the denial just just because of that. But I do think someday that corridor should and will be, you know, revitalized into commercial or something else. But that's my two cents.

Todd, I've got your light on. Yep. Thanks. Um, I believe in this meeting I've heard this corridor references Highway 79, uh, truck route and the expressway. Um, the Hartland Expressway. This used to be a state route and it used to be a truck route, but with the construction of Elville, Highway 79 goes east, the truck route now goes east, and the H Heartland Expressway follows the state route. This is just a local street or a local arterial street.

Todd always coming with the knowledge. Mike Quasnney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I still, you know, we talked about spot zoning, but I think that you have to start somewhere. And I appreciate John what you brought up. I I think that there's a way to take industrial and put a nice fence in front of it. and maybe have some commercial that uh hides our industrial and creates a a a zone that when you enter our city, it feels better. And I have that even though this is a just a a street as it's named, it it does connect to the Heartland Express. It does connect and bring people into our community uh tourist and we try to beautify those streets so that we have a welcoming effect. I will probably vote to against denying this only because I think we have to start somewhere and we have to look and see what we can do to change this. and and um it starts one at a time and that's how things have changed whether it's the Kmarts in our community or or whatever it is. We start with one thing at a time and we change it and make our community better. So I will be going uh as I do not want uh this denied. So I will vote that way.

All right. Uh Jeff, thank you. Uh, Mr. Chair, and thanks everyone for their comments. This is a difficult decision, and I do appreciate very much the the landowner, the property owner, and all the work that you've done. This building's been around for an awful long time. I used to go to um my chiropractor in that building, Max Winkler, God rest his soul. But nonetheless, every lake starts with one drip of water. And obviously, if we want to change the the overall scheme and plan of this area from industrial, we got a lot of work to do. Um this this the whole neighborhood I mean just almost adjacent to this is the old ligignite gasification plant that has been abandoned I mean for all practical purposes out of out of use since the 70s. Um Marilot is not going to go anywhere. So there's always going to be a spur railroad spur there. They probably use this uh rail bed more than anybody else in that area. Um you you have a prison that's in close proximity. you have I mean we the landfill is there there as I said every lake starts with a drop but uh I don't know that a coffee shop is necessarily the starting point for a a major overhaul in this particular area and that's what I'm hearing today is the that the the that the conflict comes with the interest in opening a coffee shop. Um, so I'm going to hold for a more timely opportunity to consider reszoning of the of the area um until there's a larger plan in place. Um, and so I I'll be uh upholding the recommendation of deny. Thank you.

I'm going to jump in with a question about the future land use uh plan update that you mentioned next year. the Can you I assume that's a city-wide process and can you talk about the timing of that?

Um there are a couple other things on the agenda that we need to get started first and we've got some huge projects but uh that is one. I would assume it would probably be um about this time next year uh that we would bring that forward. And again, when we update our future land use plan, we go into the individual neighborhoods. We notice we use auditoriums and schools. We want the folks that live there to come in and have a voice in what should happen in those neighborhoods. So, that does take a significant amount of time. And this is something we do internally. We don't hire a consultant to do. Staff goes out and does this.

I appreciate that. that um I think that's needed for these parts of our community as as Todd noted, you know, as our as our routes change, as our street designations change, as our community changes, we have to be cognizant of that. Super tough though to

take one 4 acre parcel on a street that you know of if if not hundreds of acres between Campbell and the railroad tracks and say that this needs to be different than the surrounding areas. I am I guess I'm I'm leaning towards uh believing that it should be commercial though because I I think that it this is an entrance corridor and I I think there should be a buffer from the street to industrial uses. Tough though. I Anybody have a motion or other comments? Karen,

I make a motion to deny the request for reszoning from uh heavy industrial to the commercial. All right. Second. Karen made the motion to deny. Jeff, I believe, seconded that. Eric Eric seconded that motion. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion to deny, please say I. I. Opposed. I.

I. So I passed with Mike Quazny and myself voting no. The motion to deny. I did I miss anybody's vote otherwise? No. Okay, that takes us to item number nine. Well, good morning again. [laughter] So, today we are going to hear a proposed vacation home ordinance. We'll go through kind of the background, what's in the proposed ordinance, and how we got here today through our presentation. [snorts] So, in 2024, staff was requested by various council members to put together a vacation home ordinance. Um, this started Rapid City's housing market has changed significantly during and after the pandemic. I think we've all felt that. And at the same time, whole home rentals as a lodging experience through websites like Airbnb, VRBO were becoming more prevalent as an investment opportunity in town as well with our tourism economy and such. So, in the fast the past few years, we've steadily seen around 600 to a,000 listings. And though, keep in mind, those are listings. The actual amount of vacation homes may vary. Um, and that's just in Rapid City. So staff often gets questions about vacation homes, whether it's from operators looking to invest in one and make sure that they're following the rules or if neighbors are concerned about those that they see in their neighborhoods and want some method of enforcement. And currently our zoning

code does not actually address vacation homes in a way um that is clear and precise to regulate them. So operators are taking a risk then and investing in having a vacation home and complaints don't have a definitive enforcement process that we follow. So staff again um started working with an advisory committee that was formed in June 2024 to help with uh putting together a vacation home ordinance. I'd like to recognize those in our advisory committee. There were 18 members. A lot of those were just volunteers and spent a lot of time and effort and really invested in this process and gave great feedback and care about our community. And so we held six meetings with them. Those reps have very varied interests. So we had very interesting meetings. We had those that own and operate vacation homes, the hotel industry, tourism, those working in housing because there is an excess with our housing market. uh neighborhood group representative from neighborhoods with a high concentration of vacation homes, real estate professional as well as state representative council members and staff many of whom are in the audience today. The committee spent, as I said, a significant amount of time discussing the options. And then over the course of the year, we also had uh two open houses and got public feedback on those options and the committee recommendation to see what the public thought. Those public comments were taken into consideration with the final recommendation that you'll see later in the slides. This was the advisory committee's mission statement. We agreed on this from the first meeting and revisited each time. Ultimately, there was recognition that an ordinance is needed to permit them since there there's no really mention of them in our zoning

code today. This gives them a path forward. Um [snorts] doing so there was a strong effort to represent and balance those competing interests between different industries as well as neighborhoods that also helps create a fair playing field with other hospitality providers and maintain neighborhood character. So this is our proposed definition of vacation homes. We started with the state definition which they do regulate and I'll get into that um but we refined it a bit for Rapid City specifically. And just to clarify, so vacation homes are shorter term, so not monthly whole home rentals where the owner or manager is not on site during the time of the rental. So the state department of health does currently require a lodging license for vacation homes and a safety inspection similar to other lodging providers like hotels and specialty resorts. So, as the committee began review, they looked at the current state requirements, which you'll see up at the screen. Um, these protect the safety of those staying in the vacation home and they're not familiar with their surroundings in case of an emergency for livability purposes, and public health. So, you'll notice things like fire safety, water safety, um, housekeeping, general livability factors, and safety factors. There was agreement from the committee that since these are covered by the state department of health, our ordinance would just need to require that license or proof of that license um prior to being allowed in the city in order to address those requirements. So these are not duplicated in the ordinance that's proposed and I'll hand it off to Marlo. All right. So [clears throat] once the committee had a strong understanding of what the state already requires, we started to discuss what what would be needed in a local ordinance. And as

Jessica already highlighted, um I just want to say that this was really where I think the the bulk of the hours were spent and where the individual expertise and experiences of the committee members uh really shone through. So I just want to thank them for looking at this from honestly every conceivable angle. And if we were to talk through all of the topics that were discussed, we would be here for a couple of days. So, uh we'll just cover the the higher um higher, I guess, priority items. So, first and foremost, uh starting with permitted use, as Jessica already noted, the um Rapid City zoning code does not currently address vacation homes, um which creates a bit of a legal gray area for operators. So there was [clears throat] general consensus among the group that by creating an ordinance that defines vacation homes as a permitted use will be able to provide a clear legal path for operators to comply with basic local and state regulations so that they can be assured that their investment is sound and that they can legally provide this important hospitality amenity within our community. Uh the second topic of discussion was around safety. So, um, as Jessica noted, there's several safety factors that are, uh, uh, looked into by the state through that licensing process. Um, and when we reached out to the state, we found that currently less than 1% of active vacation home listings in Rapid City have obtained that state license, which does bring into concern some potential safety factors for those looking to uh stay in vacation home once vacation homes when they come to visit Rapid City. So,

um, that also brings into, uh, focus some of the inequities that may currently exist, uh, between other hospitality operators since, as we've seen with the 1% of, uh, vacation homes obtaining that license, there's a bit of an inequity there um, in terms of the requirements that they're uh, supposed to be meeting with those safety requirements. And I do want to highlight that this was an action identified in the 2025 comprehensive plan to start identifying ways that we can even the playing field there for hospitality providers. Um by [clears throat] creating this ordinance, we would ensure that operators have gone through the state safety inspection process and that we're creating that even playing field. So, another reason that this ordinance is needed is because it creates an enforcement mechanism for the city that we currently lack. The majority of vacation home operators in Rapid City are great neighbors. They take pride in their listings. However, uh complaints do arise um most consistently related to issues with parking and noise, particularly in those listings that we've got larger homes uh being utilized um that sometimes end up acting more as event spaces. Um, adopting regulations at the local level will allow us to obtain 24-hour contact information so that we're able to hold operators accountable in those instances where there are um complaints that come in, legitimate complaints that come in and that um we can address those in a a timely manner. So, um, registration and monitoring. Rapid City is one of the last communities in the Black Hills region to not have adopted vacation home

rental regulations. And this has come with the benefit of us being able to um work with other communities throughout the hills and learn what has worked well and what has not worked well through um their regulations. And I think one of the primary things that we learned is that um as other communities have rolled out their regulations, um the enforcement piece has been difficult. Um, and one thing that Rapid City would be looking at doing differently to learn from, you know, some of the things that other communities have faced in terms of challenges of enforcement is we would purchase a registration and monitoring software that would allow us to track and enforce regulatory compliance through the registration process. So that would look like a fee of less than $100 for an annual registration to cover the cost of purchasing that software. and that [clears throat] will allow us to make sure that we're adopting enforcable regulations and um that we don't have to hire additional staff um which did come up as a topic of concern among the committee. So

[snorts]

um I would say one of the biggest areas of discussion through this process was in relation to housing. So, um that's primarily because of the fact that given the residential uh nature of vacation homes, they they do fit into the uh housing landscape. And as the committee reviewed existing listing information, there was recognition that there are heavier geographic concentrations of listings in our older neighborhoods that do tend to um not have covenants or uh homeowners associations and that's where a lot of our older more naturally affordable housing stock is located. So while market conditions have improved since the crunch uh that we're experiencing following the pandemic um through the comprehensive plan process, we did hear that housing affordability and availability are still a primary concern and challenge for community members. So by adopting vacation home rental regulations now, we can be proactively gathering data specific to our local market so that we can better understand how vacation homes fit into the larger housing puzzle. And we can be prepared to answer some of the specific questions related to our local market that we do not currently have the data to answer and make datadriven decisions moving forward. should we need to revisit these um regulations in the future and public feedback. Uh in general, I would say um the majority of potential regulatory options such as uh whether or not there's a need to cap the overall number of vacation homes in the community or regulate at the individual neighborhood level. the

community was more evenly divided on those kinds of topics, but overwhelmingly there was support for um the need to require local registration. So, what would local registration look like? This would really allow us to address the gaps that the state requirements do not currently cover. So, as I noted previously, um annual registration requirement um with a fee of less than $100. Um the property owner would have to sign the application. Registration would be required for each individual listing and the registration number must be included in all advertisements. So, couple things there. Um there was discussion around what types of housing should vacation homes be allowed uh in. So, should they be allowed in apartment buildings? Should they be allowed in single family building or single family homes? And ultimately, the committee landed on as long as the property owner, if you live in an apartment, as long as your property owner is comfortable with you, you know, renting out your apartment for a month while you're out of town. Um, they found that was uh, you know, not a not a major concern. And then with the registration number being included in the advertisements, that allows us if we do receive a complaint to quickly identify the property. Again, we will have that ongoing um 24-hour contact information that would be maintained. Um for uh property owners that may be more than 50 miles from Rapid City, the local contact would be required. So that um you know we do see outofstate investors purchasing homes operating that makes sure that um that use is accountable to the surrounding neighbors. And then with that registration not being transferable

uh that allows us to ensure that you know should someone purchase the home also want to operate it as a vacation home that we have that 24-hour contact information. Um the signed affidavit would be required and that's basically the um [clears throat] property property owner acknowledging that they understand the requirements that they need to meet. That keeps the city from having to do um you know extensive uh inspections that the state's already covering. Um again keeping us from having to hire additional staff. And then where the committee landed, we don't, no one wants to impact um operators uh you know ability to provide this amenity within the community. So the committee agreed that a six-month grace period would be allowed to go through that licensing and registration process. So with that, I will hand it off to Vicki.

Thank you. So, let me just say that it was almost a year of meetings with a very diversified group. Some days it felt like hurting cats. Um, it seemed like we would take three steps forward, then we'd have an open house and those that had concerns with vacation homes had a strong showing at those open houses. So, then the committee would spin backwards and we were at ground zero. and then we would start up again. So after our last open house and going back to ground zero, we got together and we said, "Look, we've come to some good solutions here. Let's take a vote. Let's go with the majority rule." And there were 14 voting members on the committee. And on this particular day, 11 committee members were present. And so what we uh determined was that yes, unanimously registration is a good thing. It protects the rights of those that are operating a vacation home today and makes it fair and consistent for anyone that wants to enter the market because those that are currently operating vacation homes are truly doing a very good job. We do have some problem properties, especially those larger ones that have many bedrooms that become more of an event facility. But overall, these are the cute lots in the neighborhood. They're wellgroomed. Um, and so we didn't want to penalize them. We wanted to reward that. So the decision was we're going to allow these in all zoning districts that currently allow residential with the exception of those that don't which is the industrial flood hazard mining and extraction shopping center public and airport zones.

That wouldn't impact anyone that's operating right now. We wanted to uh follow suit with what the the state recommends and what many other communities currently have adopted, which is limit the occupancy to a maximum of two per bedroom plus two additional guests. Those are your sofa surfers. Um because these are all pretty much operating in residential areas on residential streets, these homes already have the requirement for two on-site parking spots. And the adjacent street in most all cases is designed to provide for on street parking. So we landed at let's just stick with the two off- streetet parking spaces for the vacation home. If they do have four bedrooms and there's three couples that uh come to meet there, they could park in the the driveway and then they could also park in the street in front of the home and it wouldn't negatively impact the neighborhood. However, because of the number of complaints that we have received on those larger facility facilities, the group did at a vote of 10 to one concur that those larger homes, those should be a conditional use permit. We should have the ability to bring it into planning commission, let the neighbors have a voice in what they've witnessed or what their concerns might be. Uh and so it that was I think a good compromise within the group. Uh there were interested individuals on the committee that were really looking at preserving the integrity of the historic district in particular West Boulevard. There is a significant number of vacation homes existing in that area and there was discussion as to whether or not we should make those a conditional use

permit too. Um, where we landed was no. The 111 review will be needed for any of those homes currently operating that do not have a state license and they will need to secure one. And as uh we previously discussed, the state license is going to require that these home have egress windows. Some of these historic structures will not receive that 111 permit to replace those windows if they don't meet that historic review standard. So we think there will be some attrition in that just due to the uh 111 review requirement. So the committee agreed we would not require a conditional use permit for the historic district. um looking at whether or not we should cap it. Other communities have tried that. What it does though is it elevates the existing vacation homes. Their value has just shot up and there seems to be a natural market uh evaluation that those in the business do. We've seen some vacation homes turn into monthly rentals. uh we've seen a significant slowdown of vacation homes when the tourist season isn't there to support it. So we landed on let's not cap it at this time. When we do have the software data in place, uh then we can actually look at real factual numbers to see if there is a neighborhood that's inundated or if there should be a cap in the future. But at this point, without that concrete data, we didn't want to make that limitation or hindrance. That six-month grace period, we know that the uh Department of Health has a limited number of inspectors.

So, less than 1% currently have a license. when they work with us to bring their properties into compliance with the state, which is required right now, even if the city does nothing. Um, then we want to give the state the additional time and the vacation home owners the grace period to work with them and bring that forward. And our goal was let's regulate it for those who do have valid concerns and living in a neighborhood that do make complaints but again making this as user friendly for the vacation home operators uh yet being fair and equitable to what we require of the hotel industry. So what does this mean? How do you operate a vacation home in Rapid City? Well, you have to go get your state license. That's required right now. Annual registration allowed in all zoning except those that don't allow residential. Two off- streetet parking, maximum occupancy as stated, and a cup only if it's more than five bedrooms. That's where the committee landed and that's the ordinance that you have attached to the item in the agenda. So, we've got several on the committee here in the audience today. And again, not all of us landed exactly where we needed to be, but we went with the majority vote. Uh we'll stand for questions and we encourage you to take public comment. Thank you.

Thanks, Vicki. We do have several uh speaker requests. I'll start with Peter Schmid.

Hello. Um my name is Peter Schmid. I was on the committee. I really enjoyed it. It was long. I I appreciate all the work everybody did. Um, but I just can't help myself by uh speaking to you today. Uh, I should warn you, my demeanor is sometimes stern. Um, I I'm not as a passionate about this as you might expect, but I do have a lot of uh vacation rental experience in town, property management, long-term, short-term. Um, I love the short-term rental. I think it's been great for our community. Um, that being said, Steve Jobs has a great quote. If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution. The short-term uh rental committee first met in July of 2024, but the conversation has been going on for much longer. Why so long? We are having a tough time finding a problem to solve. My suggestion uh I knew, you know, if if there's a committee that is tasked with coming up with the regulation, this is a a great one that we could, but my suggestion is not to do anything. Uh take the win. They're working well in Rapid City. The tourist pie has grown so much over the last five years, hotels included. This is a way for your average Rabbit Cityian to participate in the hospitality business. They're never going to own a hotel, but they love being um being in the business. Uh so if you can't define the problem, so if cars were racing through Rapid City, if um we would come up with speed limits and stop signs, if people were eating contaminated food, we'd come up with regulations. We don't have a problem. The the police and fire department are not asking for our help. They aren't spending resources on short-term rentals. The Department of Health isn't getting a lot of complaints from people who are having a bad experience uh in an Airbnb. In fact, if you go to Trip Adviser, sort hotels and rapid, worst to best. Read the reviews of the worst hotels. They have the Department of Health license. So, there's no guarantee that once you have that license, you're a you're doing good

for your guests. Um I personally have probably had 5,000 Airbnb check-ins. I just I can count the bad ones on one hand. They've just been great. Um for the last eight years, the committee was presented with complaints on 25 properties. We didn't have all the details of every complaint. Most of these were just complaints that they were Airbnbs, not a specific noise or the police were called or any any any real disturbance uh to you. And just because your neighbor, you know, has is a short-term renter versus a long-term doesn't mean you can't enjoy your property. Um taxes are being collected and paid. Uh there the city can tell you on that. Um with with home values, I I just want to say I've seen the rise in home values in Rapid City. You know, I'm a licensed realator, too. Um we've had increased economic activity. You know, we we stayed open during COVID. We created all these short-term rentals as a as a as a response to the demand. Home prices are going up because we're an economically vibrant part of the country. They're up all over the country. Every asset value is up. The more successful Elevate is, if we don't increase our home supply, our home prices are going to go up. Uh if there's a new hospital in town and we don't increase homes, they're going to go up in value. So that's my three minutes.

All right. Thank you. Thank you, Rod Pedigrew.

[clears throat]

Thank you uh commission. I'm I'm here as a resident 123 St. Cloud Street where there are a lot of short-term rentals and I'm also here uh speaking not on behalf of the city council, but I am on the city council and was an active participant in this process. that went on a long time and I'm glad we've come this far and we can get something before us. Um my concern, you know, as a resident within my home at 123 St. Cloud, there's four or five short-term rentals. To Peter's point, they haven't been a problem. They really haven't. Um sometimes there's some parking issues, but there's parking issues with houses. So, um I I can't say they're a problem. I guess my big concern is I've been made aware that uh last year either 124,000 or 144,000 nights were booked in short-term rentals in rent city. I can't believe that. That's amazing. So, I just want to make sure they're competing with the hotel motel industry. I just want to make sure uh in in on one side that they're collecting the same fees. they're they're having to pay the bed boo tax. All those fees that a hotel has to pay should be collected by short-term rentals and the safety issues. If a hotel is required to provide some sort of safety system, I think uh to be fair, the short-term rentals should um meet that same requirement. Um there are probably within four or five [clears throat] blocks of me two properties that are creating problems. I get calls from the neighbors and um to Vicki's point, we have no enforcement policy. And I tell the neighbors, well, we don't have a policy, so there's nothing we can do. So, I think having this will give us

uh um you know some ability when there's problems to step in and and um correct that. Is this ordinance perfect? No. Is there things we disagree on? Yes. But I look at this as the first step. And as things change, things don't work, I think we'll have to come back and mold and modify, improve, disconnect. But I just think we we need a policy and this is a good first step to start the process and um see how it works. Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] Caleb Arseno.

Good morning. My name is Caleb [clears throat] Arseno and I was uh honored to be part of the committee uh with Vicki and the team and they really did a great job. Uh we did put a lot of work into it. Um, I'm the CEO of Live Hospitality. We have 13 hotels in and around the Black Hills of South Dakota and I've been part of this discussion in multiple cities. So, it is something that uh every municipality is taking a look at. Um, the hotel industry is asking for a level playing field. Uh, I think short-term rentals has a place. I think they're necessary. I think the visitors I think it's a positive part of the visitor experience. So, I'm not against short-term rentals. I do think it needs to be a level playing field. You know, there are requirements we as hotel years have to abide by. Uh we have uh sprinkler systems, we have fire suppression systems, we have uh emergency procedures, we have things that we have to do to provide for the safety and security um of our guests that are staying with us. And I think short-term rentals, while maybe not going to those lengths, need to do something to ensure the safety and security of our visitors to our area. Um, part of the discussion with short-term rentals is always the ne negative effects on affordable housing. I do think there is a uh concentration discussion to happen in the future, but I do think this proposed ordinance is a positive step in the right direction to address some of these needs. Um, I would like to remind the uh planning and zoning committee here that at the end of the day, these are commercial businesses being run in residential areas. And in fact, so much there's a thousand over a thousand uh short-term rental listings here in Rapid City. And to put that in perspective is that that's the equivalent to over 10 additional hotels in the market, right? And these short-term rentals have actually created and management companies have been born of these multiple listings all in

residential areas and they're all playing residential property taxes. So when we talk about level playing fields, there's multiple multiple facets to this. Um I think the lodging and health inspections such as the state law indicates should be compulsory. That has to happen and has to be enforced. Um and again I think this proposed ordinance is a positive step in the right direction to make sure we have created a level playing field with the hotel industry. Thank you.

Thank you Mike Derby. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Committee, uh, Mike Derby, 3912 Park Drive, and I was on the advisory committee as you saw, and uh, for a couple reasons. One, I was there as a state representative in case there was legislation that came out of this committee that would have to go to the state, uh, and be provided and to make this a viable product. But what we found is as you heard there's already rules, regulations and statute in place and a lot of it's overseen by the department of health. So that part of the uh never happened and I didn't have to worry about that. But I'll tell you a little story. What I got involved was in this whole thought process was 10 years ago when I owned the Canyon Lake Resort and um we had a uh the owner's home on the property that we bought. We wanted to convert and have a rental out of it and and so we went to the city and it was all well and good. So we had to pave the the the road leading to the property at the Canyon Lake Resort and then we had to put a a sprinkler system in. So about $47,000 later, I I get my certificate of occupancy. All well and good. And then um shortly after that, there's a similar house in Chapel Valley, same size and location approximately, um went into the Airbnb system. And what did they have to do? Exactly. Nothing. And so there was a mo a move back in the time worked with Vicky Fischer in 2016 uh worked with uh putting together a ordinance and at that time the political will of the council

did not want to move forward and that was 2016. We had about a hundred properties that fit that category and now on any given day there's six to 10 times that in the marketplace. So, we did a lot of work. I give a lot of credit to Vicki and the her staff. I mean, I don't know how many ordinances you have where you have six meetings, public input, and I think we came up with a product that we could be proud of and can be implemented. I did not get everything I wanted. I wanted to have some kind of notification for the neighbors that hey once you there's somebody that's coming to your neighborhood that's going to have a vacation home. Maybe you should know about it. Well, that didn't that fell on the cutting room floor and that's okay. We had a majority vote and and so majority rules in my world majority rules and in your world majority rules and so I think you've got a good product in front of you and I'm supportive of it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mark Miller. Morning. I'm Mark Malar. I'd like to talk to you about this. I'm a little bit confused. Few years back, Rapid City denied all commercial businesses in residential areas and denied all of us who operated our businesses out of our homes from operating our homes out of residential areas. I started my business 18 years ago as an electrical contractor, a one-man shop. I knew I'd be standing at the planning desk on a regular basis. And uh so I asked them before I even started my business, is this okay? And they said fine, no problem. Do not get any freight delivered to your house by semis. That was the condition. Operator there never had a complaint. I talked to all my neighbors. We're all friends. I'm a little concerned how we have a thousand commercial operations in our residential neighborhoods apparently with 1% compliance with the rules that are already made by the state. Is the city going to propose allowing us to return our private businesses to our homes? I'm a one-man operation. I don't I didn't disrupt anybody at the time when the city changed that rule. The word that I got from a council member was because we were unable to regulate a operation doing body work until midnight in their neighborhood. Because we couldn't come up with a regulation to regulate that man, we

threw a blanket ordinance on no commercial businesses in our residents. Is that not still the rule? I'm I'm a little confused here. The we in Rapid City right now, we have a a huge problem of not allowing grass to grow under anything we do. You guys are moving the goalpost all the time. But what's quite obvious from this meeting is the state needs to step in and start regulating people. As a licensed electrician, I have been held a license regulated by the state a lot longer than all of the other trades. I have to maintain my business license, maintain my business insurance just to maintain my license, which I gained through 65,000 hours on the job. We need regulation on this industry certainly. And I don't care who steps up, but I will be operating my shop out of my home. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, that's the last

Mr. Chair, if I could just give a summation. Um Mark always makes good points and just a point of clarification. So whether you're renting a home on a monthly basis or a nightly basis, when you're there, you're using it for residential purposes. We do have an allowance within the zoning ordinance. It says if you want to do a business from your home, it's called a home occupation. Um based on the scope of it, it could be a conditional use permit um that would require notification to the neighbors. But there are many many businesses operating from their homes uh that align with the criteria similar to the vacation home. If you're u five or less bedrooms, you'll be permitted. If you're larger, functioning more as an event, then in those cases too, it'll be a conditional use permit. I wanted to share with you the significance of the registration. One of the things we did just a random search of a 100 vacation homes and found that 25% of them have checked the owner occupied box at DOE. And so when we stand up this um registration software, we we get to sit back and it's a a minimal fee and we'll we'll have the users pay for the fee and it will do an automatic search every day of every website that does vacation home listings, not just Airbnb and Verbbo because a lot of people have learned get off those two, go to an obscure one, the public knows about it, you won't get caught. This will do a random search of 5 to 10,000 websites daily and then those that land in Rapid City, they will get an automatic letter saying you need to come into compliance. Staff doesn't have to do that, just a form letter and we are working with them so that it's very user friendly. We want to invite

people to come in and come into that compliance and having that that equal playing field is important for the hospitality industry across the the city. I think it's is interesting that uh Councilman Roberts who is on the committee came to one meeting the first meeting and at the end of the meeting he said to me Vicki I agree with registration we should allow it in all zoning districts. we shouldn't limit it and I think the parking for the house should deal with it. And then he got to skip all the meetings and that's basically where the committee landed. [laughter] So I think he had some great foresight. Um and I just with him on that so we're here for questions if you have them.

John, you got to tell us the lottery numbers too. Uh Chip,

good morning. Um, I feel that the fire department feels this is a much needed um issue. Uh, I've stayed in some uh in different towns and I walk in three-story house, not one smoke detector. So, it's something that we need to get a handle on to ensure the safety of people that are visiting our community. Um, and then also I have a question on the fee rate. Um, I think it's light. If I get one complaint, it's just if I take one staff member to go look at that property, that's an hour, $100. If you talk about all the costs that go into that and I think, you know, compared to other cities, our fees need an adjustment on all all across the board, you know, to be competitive. But yeah, I think that's that's what we need to look at. All right, Eric Hikus.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm all fired up. Actually, this is this is something I have a lot of opinions about. Mr. Malar, I do appreciate you. Uh I I started my business in the addition on the back of my house, too, and we grew [clears throat] it into something pretty exciting. So, I really appreciate Caleb, your comments, and yours, Mike. Um, I do appreciate Peter and and the whole all everything I've heard today. I really think we need this. Uh, I I really think we need this. It is something that brings above board and puts daylight on something that kind of is a little bit doesn't have enough daylight on it. A lot of these are kind of de facto underground black market issue. I'm not these are harsh terms but until we until we know about them and we can see them and and and uh have data on them then we don't know right so this brings everything above board and I'm really am supporting it for those reasons um I'm going to say a couple things that uh are a little more softer maybe but um a lot of these in neighborhoods um basically transplant, you know, my neighbors Renee and Brian and Dan and Tom and across the street. They no longer become my neighbors. That's just a ADU. That's a that's a rental unit. And enough of those and you don't really have much of a neighborhood anymore. You just have a an area filled with rentals. And that's not that's not a neighborhood. That's that's not why we live in these places. Um, Powder House Pass in in Leed is almost 85% rentals. And that's not a neighborhood

either. That's a party that's a party uh subdivision where uh they overwhelm their garbage and they overwhelm their sewers and they plug up the sewers with condoms and there's multiple issues with enforcement all the time. that is not that is not what we want in in our in our town. Right. So, um we we told the the administrator of Sturgis this kind of the same thing about the rentals in their downtown. Uh you hold the hand that holds you down during the rally. If you think that your community is going to benefit from renting out all these businesses during the rally and then standing vacant the rest of the year, you're mistaken, right? So, uh, I don't think we should subordinate ourselves to, um, you know, a higher paying fee from somebody that wants to come in and and rent these these properties. Uh, where is the teacher going to live? Where's the policeman going to live? Where are, you know, uh, there's plenty of apartments out there, but, you know, what about the people that want a house, right? And so if we've supplanted them, I'm going over my three minutes here, I know, but uh if we've supplanted them with rentals, um then we have an issue with housing that we have an we have an housing issue. I think this this uh impacts the housing as well. I am in full support of it and I thank you for listening to me about this.

All right, Kelly. Thank you. [clears throat]

Um, yeah, I think this is very much needed. I can't believe it hasn't happened prior. I have a question about the inspection process, whether it's a new, you know, or existing rental. You know, I wonder how much burden, how far the inspection process will go on what level and and you know, the hotel industry obviously is regulated. They're consistent. Hotels have to have X, Y, and Z for compliance and safety and all that. My question is, you know, private rentals are probably all over the map, old, new, large, small. What, and this may not even be established yet, but what will the standard be for inspections? You know, are they going to go into code? Are they going to go into, you know, adopting, you know, IRC, right, or, you know, the the international codes? What would that process look like? I guess I'm wondering how much of a burden that will put on people that are already functioning and people that want if they want to get into this business, you know, how much of a burden will this inspection come down on them?

So, as we mentioned in the presentation, um Department of Health will do the inspection.

That's the state. That's the state will do to address these issues to ensure that they've got the fire safety that Chip mentioned and egress windows, make sure the water's safe, um look at the electrical wiring, uh general housekeeping, garbage. That's one of the complaints we do get is that um they had a party in the backyard and garbage blew all through the neighborhood. Um so that will be done at that level and then for us they are confirming by signing an affidavit that they are providing the two off- streetet parking spots and that they're going to keep the occupancy to the limits as noted and then we don't go out and inspect that even though with uh Google uh map and rapid map um we can pull everything up go down on the street side and we don't need to go on site to confirm a a lot of it.

Okay. And but it will be an annual as as proposed it'll be an annual inspection once a year for right. Exactly. Okay. The reason we're giving that six-month grace uh we want to work with these operators and allow them to keep operating in the meantime, but do needs that time because they are short staffed. And one of the reasons why we were so excited to have Mike on the committee who also sat on appropriations is maybe they need more funding to hire more people. Right. I I I'm going to plant that seed every chance I get.

So the the do rags [clears throat] for this is crafted tailored to this kind of not mimicking hotel or um hospitality rigs. This is their regulation specific for vacation homes across the street. the state. Gotcha. Okay. Thanks. I'm gonna hop in with a follow- on question. Just to your point, did you have any discussions with the state? Are they ready to review a thousand homes in Rapid City in the next 6 months?

Long discussions. I think we know them all really well. Um and they need that grace period for them to keep up with uh the requests that they're going to be getting. And um we anticipate that there will be some that will jump on the bandwagon and they will submit for their license right away because remember if you don't have a state license you can't register and then we do have authority of compliance from there. Uh and as long as they're working with the state and getting that license and we're collaborating with the state, we'll give them whatever time that's needed to ensure that that gets done and then work with them on registration. we might have a preliminary registration with the city so that we get that contact information while they're continuing to work with the state on securing the license. And we do that for other uses, too. When we have to go to another agency to uh license something, um if they're working on it, then we'll we'll uh allow them to continue that operation as long as they're working towards the end result.

Okay? So if they if someone comes in for a new one in 3 months and is right in the middle of the inspection process of all the existing ones and they can prove that they've contacted the department of health that there there will be possibly an extended grace period for those. Is that fair to say? I think that's fair to say. We're hopeful that the state can get additional staff and address these as needed. But if there needs to be, we are not going to penalize the operators if the state does not have the employees necessary to act in a timely manner. Okay. Sorry to jump in there. Um, John Roberts,

thank you very much. And I'll keep this brief maybe. Um, I I would have a lot to say about this, but I'll say it at the council, but I do want to go back to the 2016 ordinance because I was a part of that. Uh the biggest reason that that ordinance didn't pass at that time was it would have way overregulated vacation rentals. Um and that was also during that time where Airbnb was suing every every municipality that was bringing in these ordinances. And you know when I saw San Francisco lose I thought you know Rapid City probably wouldn't have much of a chance on that. Uh but one of the things that that ordinance at that time would have done is it would have created u the city is the compliance officer. So we would be out inspecting them all. We would be permitting them all. We would be which would have added more staff. We would had to add more staff at the time even though there wasn't very many. We knew it was going to be a growing, you know, business um because it was just blowing up all over the country. So, I do I like what I see here looking through the ordinance. I think that there's there's some language change and a few small things, but most of what I'm seeing I think is going to work well. There's not a lot of overregulation on this in my opinion. Um, and it also does keep it on a fair playing field with the hotel, you know, industry. Uh, also the taxes the state should be getting will be getting off of it. 1% compliance on a thousand, you know, uh, quote unquote businesses is a pretty low percentage. I don't think that it's going to cause a lot of over regulatory burden on anyone. Um, and now I want to go back to my profession as as a realtor, broker,

owner of a real estate company in Rapid City. I have not touched vacation rentals since 2016 because I knew there was going to be some kind of ordinance coming into place. And I didn't want the liability of telling somebody the wrong thing, you know, because if I tell somebody, I'm going to sell you this, you're taking it as a as a, you know, short-term rental, and then all of a sudden, 6 months later, something changes. And 6 months is kind of a stretch because it takes two years to do anything in the city. No offense, Vicki, or 2016 to 2009 years. So, you know, I I think that this is a good step. I think that again, we're not really overregulating anyone. Um the fees. Now, of course, the fire department always wants more money, so you know that I'm not going to worry about that too much. I'm more worried about how we are going to keep them all in compliance and what the the penalties will be for not being in compliance and how we're going to regulate that and that's more, you know, we can talk about, but we got to get the ordinance in place first because there's always going to be things you're going to have to iron out after the fact. So, anyway, I do support it pretty much as it is, probably with a couple of changes. Thank you.

[snorts] Thanks, Yan. H uh Haven,

thank you. Uh I I I'm also in support in support of the ordinance. I was concerned also with the enforcement. Um I note that there as you define a vacation home under this ordinance. There's a lot of uh short-term rentals that will be outside of the ordinance. A, example, a apartment complex that uh with an on-site manner that manager that sets aside two or three apartments for uh short-term rentals or uh the homeowner who has an an apartment in the home uh that is rented on short-term rentals. Apparently, those are both outside of the ordinance and wouldn't be regulated. I guess maybe one question I have are those uh are are those regulated or required for a permit by the state? So is the state rep uh regulating those?

I I I think I'm confused by your question. the the short-term rentals that are not included in this ordinance uh exempted are under 14 days on-site manager owner. Uh I guess are are those short-term rentals rent uh regulated in any manner by the state because they're they are not regulated under this ordinance.

No, we've got a what I call the Sturgeist Rally provision in state law. um that anyone can rent their home for 14 days in a calendar year with no limitation. And so, no, those wouldn't have to get a license. Those would not be inspected. Um if you have a rental with a manager, that's leaning more into the hotel. And so, those two have a whole different set of regulations. and a homeowner that has an apartment uh an apartment in in their home that's also outside of the ordinance.

No. Uh it could be allowed as a accessory dwelling unit um with for a 30-day rental or it could be allowed as a vacation home. Um, this this ordinance just requires the property owner to sign the registration saying, "Yes, we we want to have the second unit on the property operating as a vacation home." In fact, when we stood up the accessory dwelling unit regulation, um, we put a provision that they could not be used for short-term rentals, but really those are where we want them because the owner has to be on the site. So there's oversight. So we would probably be looking at doing an ordinance amendment in the future.

But as I read the definition of a vacation home, it does not include a home that has an apartment in the home, the home where the owner is living. That is outside of the definition of this ordinance. Um, Kinsley, could you uh help us uh understand that? Because when it is home, cabin or similar building, that doesn't mean that it's like just one structure. Um, it can be a part of a building or uh the whole building. So part of let me get into the concept of bed and breakfast too. So, if you have a situation where um you want to provide a bed and breakfast facility, there's already uh a conditional use permit that allows that type of thing. So, thinking of a situation where you have, let's say it's a a duplex or something like this. Um, I need to sorry, I need to recall this in terms of how we set it up. And maybe Marlo and Jessica can um go back to that because we we took those out of there because of how they were um they were defined. And I'm I just I can't I can't remember it off the top of my head. I have to think through that one first. Okay. Maybe get back to you on that.

We call a home. It could be an apartment building. It could be um a whole structure, but that's your home. It's it's your home. It could be a cabin or any other similar building that could then function as uh a vacation home. So, it's not limiting what we have said in order to ensure that we don't have someone renting an apartment that's then going on a business venture for 3 months. and we've seen this uh and then they're they're they've got their apartment posted on Verbbo because they want to make a little money. Um this ordinance would say the owner of the property must sign and allow you to do that and that'll shut most of that down.

Uh yeah, thank you. You know, I'm in favor of this ordinance. I'd point out a couple of things. I think that deal with the enforcement and there was some uh that issue was brought up by a couple of the speakers. Um so, you [clears throat] know, uh it's like any ordinance, you know, we we we uh we adopt it and uh we see how it works and you know, there's always opportunity for amendment in the future. Thank you,

Mr. Chair. I do think it's important to just speak uh quickly about uh compliance. So [clears throat] again, if someone doesn't secure the state license and registration or if they don't do that annual renewal, our software company will automatically send them a letter stating you need to do this. And when that isn't done, they'll also notify us and say uh you've got these violators. And um then uh as we have a standard letter sent saying you need to comply within so many days or you're subject to a fine. And it's as part of the ordinance, we're making the compliance with this fall within the nuisance regulations that gives us solid legal backing if we should have someone that uh h a neighborhood that has a valid complaint. um that makes it far more enforceable for the city to demand compliance. So, we'll work with them and as soon as that property owner picks up the phone, calls us and says, "I'm sorry. I I'm I don't know how to do this. I've tried um can you help me, then they're working towards compliance and we don't proceed with any compliance actions. we will work with them and then if they continue after a reasonable amount of time to just ignore us then it goes back to non-compliance and we can pursue that but we try to be user friendly with everybody.

I'm going to take a quick break here and ask for a motion to extend past 9:00 if we need it. Second. All right. Karen made the motion that we'll extend the meeting past 9:00 if necessary. Vince seconded that motion. All those in favor please say I.

I. I any opposed? Okay. And I I kind of wanted to follow on uh Haven's question about apartments uh smaller apartment complexes. I I own one. I don't do short-term rentals, but I'm very aware that owners of those apartments use short-term rentals as sort of an eb and flow situation of depending on demand. Um, they will lease uh short-term or long-term. I I don't know that this registration system works well for that. And I guess I I'm curious how um the staff feels that that would work. Say if a place has 20 apartment units and any given time goes from 6 to 12 short-term rentals of different units.

Well, I I I think standing it up this way is the initial right thing to do. And if we've got an apartment owner that wants to do um five of their 50 units as vacation homes, they'll need to register five times, pay the fee five times annually. Um and it'll be once they do one, it'll be pretty easy to do the rest. But if someone were to come in and we've got someone looking at maybe bringing in uh it's really going to be hotel apartments. They're going to function as vacation homes, but they're putting a manager's office right in the uh uh the building. And so it's going to really function as a hotel. We wouldn't require registration for that. If the apartment complex had a on-site manager, then it would not need to

it would have to be zoned for hotel, not for apartments because we have a lot of vacation homes in commercial areas. Sure.

You know, one of the uh important things to note too is that these large apartment buildings that we have in town, these companies, when you sign that lease agreement, you're prohibited. You cannot operate a vacation home from your unit. Many, many of our new residential subdivisions have covenants that are on the property that says you cannot do any commercial activity, including vacation homes, short-term rentals out of those properties. So, [clears throat] that really has limited the area that vacation homes can operate legally. I guess I'm just bringing this up because I what I've seen is there's a number of landlords that use um the high demand times. They offer short-term rentals and then they do long-term leasing of furnished apartments and other times. And sometimes that long-term leasing, they'll just let it run through the high demand times. Do they I mean does that turn into okay I've got apartment three as a short-term rental. Oh now it's not. Can you take it off the list? Do they need to be you know notifying the city every time they make that change or do they just prescriptively say we may operate apartment 3 as shortterm or long-term. We have the license to do the short term but we'll do it at our um discretion.

You answered your own question. Okay,

Mr. Chair, um I do have Jessica and I um have been working with different uh rental platforms, registration platforms. So, we've gotten to see the back end of some of this. And I think an easier way to think about it sometimes for me is thinking about it from like the user standpoint and within the app, uh like Airbnb, VBO, there's different parameters when you're looking for an accommodation. you know, they say this is a whole home rental or this is a room within a home. And basically the rental software at that point is monitoring all of these sites uh on a daily basis and they're tracking, okay, how long is this listing on? So even if an apartment owner didn't realize that they were renting beyond the limits of what's defined, um that's where that compliance software comes into play because that software does the work for us. it will notify the property owner that the um you know [clears throat] it's listed on Airbnb. Let's say the individual apartment has been listed on Airbnb for 30 days. Um then that's where the compliance software comes into play is it's tracking all of that. It will identify, oh, you're uh within the bounds of um needing a license or a local registration. So,

Mr. Chair Vicki, we have vacation home uh properties right now that during this tourist season uh they're nightly weekly rentals and as we enter this time of year they'll flip into monthly rentals. Uh and getting it registered would open them up to be able to do both.

Agreed with all that. I I think one thing that that you'll want to consider is whether you offer a single registration for a property. Um just for um compliance on a hotel would be similar whether you know they they don't have to get every room registered, they just have to register their hotel.

Good point. Uh good point. if something that we might look at going into council or if we hold firm to where we're at because this is what the committee decided on and remember we start making one change and we seem to tumble back to zero. Um but the data that we can pull from this software it's going to allow us to really come forward if there there do need to be some additional changes. We're going to have solid factual information and not speculation. And I think we need that before we restrict vacation homes further than this ordinance proposes. All right, I'll get off my pedestal. Pat Rosland,

thank you. Uh I really appreciate all the comments that were brought up today. Uh some of you uh I worked with on the committee on advisory board and others not. But I really think this is a start. It's a minimal requirement to to get control of the short-term rentals in Rapid City. And uh I remember over the last year going through this [snorts]

uh conversation, I'll say there are times I thought that are we ever going to get this thing done? It seemed like it just stopped. And uh as was said before by Vicki, we regrouped and came back and after all more information. So, I really appreciate all the work that those who are in the sitting in the audience, our staff, uh, who really put into this to get a start on this. And just me living on the West Boulevard, uh, on West Boulevard and seeing I'm just saying one uh, building that is a short-term rental, you can tell it's a short-term rental because it Tuesday morning, it's cleaned. the trash can sits out on the street from Tuesday, Tuesday to Thursday when the trash is picked up. We have a lot of windy days here in town and I really appreciate I would appreciate if those who are cleaning or those who own those buildings wait and sit up the trash can on Thursday for trash pickup or Wednesday night, but not have it on the street all week waiting for this to happen. Now, look, the this is a small thing, but in my mind, it's a big thing because I live on that street. And I just appreciate all the work that's been done and uh the work is happening. The conversation we're having today is incredible. I think it's great and that's what we're here for and uh so I'm in favor of this and I really hope it goes through. Thank you,

Vince. Thank you, sorry. Got it.

All right. Thank you, Chair. Uh I there's a benefit I guess to wait until everybody else has spoken and I'm glad we go past 9:00 so I can get at least a couple of quick questions in. Uh and again I want to thank the the committee. I want to thank the the citizens that have come forward to put this together. And I can relate to what John Roberts said about 2016 and trying to get this uh appro trying to get something uh going on on this type of housing and this type of service to the to community. I do want to ask a couple of quick questions if I could about the software and uh I understand that you're saying that the software is only going to be $100 a year and that the other question I'll ask them both uh and that is well and there may be another one after that but uh who's going to have access to this software and what kind of security process one of the one of the citizens came forward and and and wants to know what's happening in their neighborhood and yes it may there may be software that talks about this type of housing around the world, but uh who's going to be able to access it based on what the city is providing?

Mr. Chair. Yeah, Vicki.

So, the fee is determined based on the cost of the software divided by the number of vacation homes that we believe we have in the community. Uh anything beyond that is a tax and we do not want to be taxing the citizens. Um, similar to eubmetal, if someone submits an application to the city, the only ones that can see that are the city or those that we authorize. So, if someone goes online and submits a registration, it's not out there for the world to see, it's out there for us to see. And it might be something that not only community development would look at but the public works department and or fire department or those that need to uh be aware that that activity is going on at that property. The police department uh but it will not be made for public access.

So the the follow-up question that it is uh what kind of security is being provided for that? And and you don't have to go into details because that's not what I'm expecting. I mean, I moved here in 1995. I don't remember checking with Senator Presler about the same question about accessing computers and keeping kids off of porn sites and things like that. So, uh, what what kind of security is being provided for that?

Just like everything that the city has, uh, our IT department has secure backup factors so that the public can't get into our information. same consideration on anything that we would bring into the system for the the public to put input into. Have you ever had any kind of potential uh viol not violation or anybody trying to hack into that that not with Jim Gilbert on duty? [laughter] I mean certainly we've had people that have tried to

as as the world has seen, but yeah, we've been very successful in protecting our information, whether it be how much someone is paying for a water bill or who submitted an application for on sale liquor. And and that again goes to fire's question earlier is that uh in addition, if you're identifying somebody who has not provided a the the proper safety conditions, who's going to who does that fall back on that? Does that go back to the state or is that going to be enforced locally?

So, uh, if there's a complaint that someone stayed at a vacation home and there were no smoke detectors or something, that would go to the state. If uh someone complains that um uh they were parking on the front lawn or being loud, um some of that would come to us, some of it would go to the police department, but those things already happen at single family residential areas, too. So, we pretty much know how to divide that up and depending upon what the complaint is and it typically always originates in our office. C can the city charge that that applicant uh for that visit by the fire department?

No. No. Uh we're here we're paid to protect the city and that's a part of our salary. Thank you. All right, Karen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think number one, I want to congratulate the committee and staff to get to this point. I mean this has been year several years in the coming really you know and there's probably things in here that are not what everybody wanted but um I think overall if we start this process and get uh regulations in place at least we have a backing to support something that is not in code or whatever and I think down the road there'll probably be things from the hotel industry that has questions and want to make changes or it's or the fire department any more money or something. But I think that's that's a process that we we will go through and I I think that's a good thing. So I'm real supportive of this uh regulation right now, this ordinance that's going forward. My only comment is I hope when it gets to the city council that they don't change a lot of it because that would just set things back. I mean I I'm assuming they could change something in there, but I hope that doesn't happen. So that's my only comment.

Mr. Chair Vicki

always um a reality. But we did have four council uh while three of them were very good about attending uh almost every meeting if not every meeting um uh the uh fourth one uh he was made aware of what we were going what where we were at and pretty much aligned with it. So as long as we've got the council speaking to each other and I think that Mr. Rosland can attest to the fact he was recently a council member. They do they do they talk about these items before they come up for a vote and they'll reach out to us if they've got questions. But at the end of the day um the hard work of that 18 person committee uh I hope is respected in the ordinance that gets passed.

All right, Kinsley, back to you.

Okay. Um, going back to Haven's question that he had about kind of the maybe the duplex situation where you could have somebody who lives on one side of the duplex and they might want to rent something on the other side of the duplex out. So, currently, if you look at the definition for vacation home, it's any home, cabin, or sim similar building that's going to be rented or leased in its entirety. and that's not occupied by an owner or manager during the time of rental. So that situation where you've got an owner occupier on one side of the duplex and then on the other side of the duplex you've just got the whole um that side of the duplex rented out as a vacation home. it's captured currently within the definition of a vacation home. But it's just food for thought in the future in terms of whether that's a situation where you might want to make that u make changes to the bed and breakfast facility. So that if you think that it should be captured more as a bed and breakfast facility situation that could be done. But right now that is included in the definition of vacation home. But I was just going to talk about that in terms of maybe there are less concerns for that type of a situation and how to deal with it if there's a very nearby manager um for that situation. But I also wanted to talk about the definition for a vacation home that's in the proposed 1704 uh 737. So we we basically took the definitions um or or looked at all these words dwelling, single family dwelling, multifamily dwelling and we said that a vacation home is not included in those

definitions. So those somehow don't recapture what a vacation home is and allow it in certain districts. So that's why you see that language in there. So, it's it's kind of a bit confusing when you look at the definition, but that's why that's in there because we're we're pulling out the definition of a vacation home and wanting to make it clear that it's separate from the definitions for things like the dwelling, two family dwelling, live work dwelling, rooming house, all those things. Mr. Chair,

just a point of clarity. So when we first started uh number one it took us a whole meeting to come up with a mission statement. I mean we just came from we uh such uh different perspectives on this but Peter can uh attest to this too. Those that were operating that were on the committee that were representing the vacation home industry. Their statement was these definitions in the ordinance already the dwelling the single family they allow for residential use. That's all we're doing. People are coming here. it's their temporary residence. So when we wrote the definition for a vacation home, the reason why it says it does not include these is to ensure that there is a separation protecting the vacation home from any regulation that we might change specific to dwellings, single family, multifamily, etc. So, if we wanted if we decided to change the parking for a single family that we'd have to uh specifically change the parking for a vacation home. Now, they're separate with their own parking rags. It's basically protecting the use of the vacation home.

All right, Alicia.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for everyone who um worked on this. I went to one of the open houses and it seems like it's hard to capture everything the first go around in terms of figuring out um how it's going to benefit the community. So, I agree with other people that this is a good first step and it's necessary um like we've heard for getting closer to an equal playing field and the safety concerns. So, I'm going to be um voting in support of this ordinance. I do wonder a little bit more about Oh, Haven's gone, but Haven's sort of line of questioning and uh the definition. So, Marlo mentioned that the search engines will show, you know, anything that's listed on these sites, uh, which could include a, um, let's see, it could include a bedroom and a house that's occupied by the owner at the time. So, I'm kind of wondering based on the definition that Kinsley just mentioned, um, how that would, you know, work in terms of registering that. Uh, so that seems like it might not be aligned with the current definition. just a small point, but kind of wondering how those two um would work together just for people understanding that they do need to, you know, reg. It sounds like they would need to register um because it will come up on the search engine, renting out a room in a home that you live in. So, that's just one question I have, but I I think this is a good uh start for us to get more data about the other concerns as well.

Mr. chair. Vicki, we we almost brought forward revisions to the bed and breakfast because right now vacation homes, you rent the whole home, it's permitted, but a bed and breakfast, you rent a bedroom. It's a conditional use permit. So, that doesn't seem fair. Um, we decided to bring this ordinance forward. Uh, we will be bringing forward an ordinance very quickly that uh addresses a bed and breakfast and then we'll make sure all of this aligns as a part of that ordinance. I that might be helpful to share at this time. Oh, I'm sorry. Now I got to find you again. I'm sorry. Can you request again one more time?

Uh, so if some if it does come up on the search with Airbnb even if so the city would see that as a bed and breakfast and they wouldn't require that owner even if they are posting on one of these short-term rental sites. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you,

Mike Quasn. Thank you, Mr. Sure. Uh I I think the fire department brought up a good the safety of the families, you know, not having uh the necessary safety features in a house. I I think that's a good thing that'll come out of this. Um I like the fact and John was right about not overregulating this. Uh make it something that is um comfortable to to run. I did have a a a little question where we've got a new hospital that's coming into our community. I foresee a lot of traveling nurses and I think it was identified here that that won't affect it because the 28 days I'm assuming a traveling nurse would be more than 28 days. Uh I don't know if they're ever brought in for less than for a short period. I I'm not familiar if if that's ever happened.

Mr. chair Vicki.

So, uh, Monument, who's here already, they do bring in a lot of traveling nurses. Those vacation homes, they get a little pricey if they're going to be here for 90 days or 6 months. Um, so the there are those monthly rentals close to the Monument Hospital right now that are held in reserve for those for what they need for their teams. And I'm sure some of them live elsewhere throughout the community. But again, due to the price of the the nightly rental on a vacation home, it's going to be cheaper for someone just to rent an apartment or an entire home for 30 days than to do a vacation home on a nightly basis. And the revenue that someone would get from that nightly rental is what they're trying to capture. So, I don't know what kind of maybe during during certain times of the year when the tourist season isn't as strong, that would be a great continued use of that building if we have a traveling nurse coming in and they need it for 3 to 6 months.

Yeah. Well, I'm familiar with the traveling nurse industry. I I have had the opportunity to rent to them. They're a good clientele. Um but at the same time I I bring up the other hospital only because I I foresee that traveling nurse need increasing not decreasing when we bring in another hospital. So [snorts] it'll be an interesting uh thing to have and and it's a great addition to our community. So um that was one of the concerns, but I I think it the safety for the families that are using those homes should be a top priority. And sometimes there's individuals sadly that don't take that in into consideration as they rent. Um, so I think that's an important part.

Eric Hikus. Well, with the time waning, I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Um, so I have I have I have because I I have to leave pretty quick. I'm going to I'm going to move we approve this uh ordinance or send it on to council for final action. I'll second that.

All right. Eric made his motion as stated to approve. Vince seconded that motion. Discussion on the motion. I'm going to throw in my two cents. I I think there needs to be a distinction between a vacation home and a vacation rental in an apartment building, multifamily dwelling. Uh, for that reason, I'm going to vote no. But it's mostly a protest vote. The the council needs to hear this. They will hear this. All right. Anything else on the motion? All those in favor, please say I. I.

Opposed? No. Just me. So, passes. John will get to discuss his issues at council. All right. Anything else for today for the planning commission, Vicki? I think this meeting's gone long enough. All right. How about from the commission? But I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Perfect. Vince made the motion. Jeff seconded that motion. All those in favor of adjournment, please say I.

I. Little orange. Well, not that anybody couldn't have said anything more. It's just that I think we were Yeah. Anybody else still wanted to add something? Got to call it some point. Let's take a